Best time to plant chives in Melbourne
Allium schoenoprasum
Also called onion chives
Sow chives in Melbourne in Oct to Mar.
The smallest kitchen onion relative, chives form dense clumps of slender bulbs and hollow, grass-like leaves about 25 cm tall. Both leaves and the pale purple, star-shaped flowers can be eaten. They come back each year, and cooks snip them fresh over all kinds of food.
When to sow in Melbourne
Melbourne, VIC is in the cool zone. Its months for chives apply here without a frost adjustment.
Not yet checked against a local guide.
Your local conditions can shift any months shown here, so treat them as a guide.
Frost in Melbourne
Frost usually arrives in Melbourne around mid June and finishes by late August. In about 1 year in 10 it comes as early as late May or as late as late September, so frost-tender crops are planned around those dates.
From the average of its 2 Bureau of Meteorology stations, 1991 to 2020, counting a night at 2°C or lower as a frost. Frost hollows and hillsides can shift these dates by weeks, so ask the growers at your garden too.
On a shared plot: stays for years
Holds its spot for years. Check your garden's rules and how long your plot licence runs.
Growing details
- How to start
- Raise seedlings, then transplant
- Sowing depth
- 8mm
- Plant spacing
- 10cm
- Row spacing
- 20cm
- Height
- 50cm
- Time to harvest
- 60-90 days
- Frost
- Hardy, takes a light frost
- Sun
- Full sun
- Life cycle
- perennial
These are typical figures, and varieties differ. Your seed packet takes priority.